


bomb meet fuse (feat. mia remix)

by piggy09



Series: Shit, let's be spies [2]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F, It's not for you. It's only for me., Spoilers this AU is pretty much my perfect fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:13:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1869228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Sarah sees Rachel Duncan, she is carrying an armful of paperwork and looks like she’s going to use it to kill a man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bomb meet fuse (feat. mia remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bad news, I've met my match](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1709897) by [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09). 



> This was supposed to be straightforward remix of "Bad news, I've met my match," but then Sarah had _opinions_ and _friends_ and my enormous boner for Helena and Sarah caring about each other and being sisters flared up and then we just had problems. So. Oops.
> 
> ...Also, just to warn you, no one stabs anyone in the eye with a high-heeled shoe this time. Y'know. In case you had hopes.

The first time Sarah sees Rachel Duncan, she is carrying an armful of paperwork and looks like she’s going to use it to kill a man.

Rachel tells the story differently – looking warmly under her eyelashes at Sarah, no matter who she’s talking to, and lovingly describing the blood Sarah left all over the sink.

She’s wrong, but Sarah’s not going to correct her because that’ll reveal what an _enormous fucking idiot_ Sarah is. For remembering.

Anyways, it goes like this: Sarah’s down on the lower levels, running an errand for Cosima (“I’m a bloody super spy, Cos, you really think this is the best use of my time” “Bullshit, you’re just gonna sit around whining about how bored you are, go get me the parts, okay”), feeling pretty damn smug about the fact that she doesn’t have to work in a cubicle all day, when she is passed by five feet four inches of _palpable disdain_.

Sarah actually slows, stops, watches the other girl pass; her haircut is so severe she could probably cut someone with it, and her grip on the paperwork is _merciless_. _Shit,_ Sarah thinks, _glad I’m never gonna have to work with her_ , and she continues on her merry way.

Yeah. That’s not really a story you can tell your friends: “Hey, one time I saw my future girlfriend for about ten seconds and thought she looked like a _total bitch_.” Especially when the aforementioned girlfriend probably wouldn’t even remember.

So she just nods at all the good parts of Rachel’s story, chimes in when she thinks Rachel’s telling it wrong, and doesn’t say a word.

That’s the truth, though. Gospel.

* * *

Sarah’s been submerged in her mission for too long – months, feels like, if not longer, months undercover, with her fake accent and faker smiles. It’s almost a relief when the whole thing goes sour, when her cover’s blown and she can start breaking noses, breaking necks. Fighting is the cleanest thing she knows: there’s no time for regret in it, and everything gets so bloody _clear_. Movements draw themselves together in a chain –  she loves it, loves it, and she’s never surprised when she finishes and finds herself smiling.

For this mission she doesn’t have time to smile; doesn’t really want to, anyways, not after Tatiana’s months and _months_ of cheery grins. Instead she tilts her head back in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding from her nose, jacks the guy’s motorbike, and speeds off.

 _Where to go,_ she thinks woozily, her head a big throb of pain from where some thug had slammed it, repeatedly, into a banister. The rest of her body is making its displeasure know at all the bruising; really at this point Sarah is just one big bruise. She can’t go back home, _can’t_ go home, can’t bring this shit to Felix and Mrs. S. She’s been trying so hard to keep it all from them and she can’t bring it to their doorstep, blood and bruises and secrets.

She can’t go back to her other home, where Helena is probably lurking on their shared sofa; her sister (her _sister_ , shit, Sarah still isn’t used to it) seems to have a knack for knowing when Sarah is at her most vulnerable and using that knowledge to just…appear, like a cat. She calls it a “connection.” Sarah thinks she must have some sort of freaky Ukrainian surveillance.

Anyways. Not home. Can’t go to surgery, either, much as she’d like some painkillers right now – Alison’ll throw a _fit_ , definitely. Last time Sarah had come in with blood on her Alison’s resemblance to Helena had been eerie and far too scarring. Knowing Sarah’s luck, she’ll be swinging in right during Alison’s shift, too.

…No reason she can’t _go_ to HQ, though. Duck in, clean up in a bathroom, skulk around ‘til Alison’s off shift, get medical care. _Sleep_.

 _Yeah, okay_ , thinks Sarah, as she drives.

* * *

She ditches the motorcycle in a back alley and slides into HQ easy as you please. From there it’s a short trip to the nearest bathroom; she leans over the sink and coughs out a journey’s worth of blood, her teeth making bright pinging noises as she spits them into the sink. Oh, _shit_ , that’s nice.

Well, no, not nice. No one wants to be coughing up teeth in the sink.

But it’s good to be rid of them.

…The blood loss is working a number on Sarah’s head, as are the repeated blows to the same body part. Honestly, she’s surprised she made it here in one piece.

She barely has time to think about it when she hears the door swinging open behind her. _Nothing to see here_ , she thinks sharply, _move along_ ; she starts prodding at her teeth in the mirror, ostensibly to check on them (they’re shattered, shit) but really to look at the girl who’s just come in.

Everything about her screams _administration_ to Sarah’s pain-woozy mind – bland, blonde, displeased as a cat. Pretty, though, in a _I’m gonna make you file these forms five times just because I don’t like you_ kind of way.

She looks at Sarah and somehow every muscle in her screams disdain _more_. “There’s a whole surgical wing for this,” she says snippily, walking up to lean on the sink next to Sarah – and _wow_ , those are some hips, Sarah thinks dazedly, and _wow_ her canine is in trouble. Figures that her mark had been so angry that Tatiana’s smiles were fake that he’d wrecked Sarah’s teeth for it.

Sarah wants to reply, but more blood is pushing at her mouth so she just flips the girl off. Pretty, yeah, but if she’s admin that means she’s at least five ranks below Sarah and Sarah is tired as _shit_. Too tired to be polite.

Oh, god, there’s the blood. She unceremoniously coughs it up into the sink.

Poor secretary-chick’s probably traumatized. Oops! Sarah looks up to see if the blonde’s fainted or something but no, she’s still standing there glaring at Sarah like Sarah had spit blood all over her grandmother. More props to her, Sarah guesses, but still – she has to patch herself up and get to surgery, she has to _sleep_ , and she really doesn’t have time to deal with the condescension of others.

“Look,” she sighs patiently, “you don’t look like you’ve ever been away from a bloody desk in your life, so I’ll give you a break ‘cause I’m sure a papercut’s kind of red alert for you. But this?” She gestures to herself, up and down, her body complaining at the bruises her mark had left all over her. “This isn’t shit, so go take your piss and get your nose out of other people’s business.”

Too harsh? Maybe. Whatever. Not like Sarah’ll get in trouble for it; she doesn’t pull rank, usually, but _god_ is it nice to just…know there won’t be consequences for getting snappy.

 “If you bleed out on the floor I’m not disposing of your corpse,” the other girl says. Sarah’s actually surprised. Pretty smart. She should get a raise.

Wow, okay, she is _very_ dizzy. Time to cut this short.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” she says curtly, purposefully looking back at the mirror.

She does the polite thing and pretends she can’t hear the other girl pissing, pretends she doesn’t notice the blonde noticing her.

Then she’s gone. Well.

Sarah’s had weirder encounters, here at the base.

Usually they aren’t this attractive, though. Sarah wonders if she can get her handler switched – but maybe that’s a decision best made for when she isn’t gripping the sink to keep from falling over.

Later, she thinks, she’ll have to figure out who exactly that girl is.

That’s later, though. For now, Sarah Manning, your mission is this: don’t collapse.

* * *

She forgets. Can you blame her? Shit gets busy and then it gets busier and she’s zooming all over the world, assassinating dictators, saving hostages, the works. At this point more and more she’s being sent along as Helena’s handler and _nothing_ is as tiring as that. _Nothing_.

(She flat-out _refuses_ to discuss the Noodle Incident. That’s not happening. If anyone brings up the idea that Helena’s hair looks like ramen again Sarah is going to throw up.)

Feels like months, years maybe, but she checks her phone and it’s only been a week since that whole Tatiana thing went, well, completely sideways. Shit. Life of an international superspy sure takes it out of a girl.

So it’s almost a relief to head back to base, to some anonymous identical briefing room. Better than receiving assignments on a plane, at any rate. Plus: plane chairs don’t spin.

She twirls in the chair she’s given and considers the ceiling tiles, idly. She can hear the _whoosh_ of the pretentious sliding door and then a dull tap-tapping of heels. Not the director, then, and probably not someone here to give her a mission—

Then a clipped voice says, “For the record, my nose was _pushed_ into this business and I had no part in it.”

Sarah looks up, and – oh, hey, it’s that girl who told her not to bleed in a sink. Sarah _knew_ she was forgetting something from the middle of all that blood loss; she was wondering how she’d gotten to surgery. This makes sense.

 _Thanks, brain_ , she thinks sarcastically. Then she realizes – wait, hold on, it’s that girl who told her not to bleed in a sink.

“ _Ho_ ly shite,” she says, watching the blonde take a seat across from her, because what are the odds. “What’re you doin’ here, paper-pusher?”

“Well, I’d assume the same as you,” the other girl says – she bats her eyelashes but her gaze doesn’t leave Sarah’s face, sharp as a knife. Shit, she’s wasted in a cubicle.

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” she continues, and Sarah opens her mouth – to say what, she’s not sure, to lie about her name, to say _what do you mean, the same as me, you’re not saying—_

“Rachel Duncan,” she says, smug as you please.

Oh, shit.

“Oh, shit,” Sarah says in a daze. “ _You’re_ Rachel Duncan.”

Rachel “Ice Queen” Duncan. Rachel “slit a man’s throat with a well-folded piece of paper” Duncan. Rachel “ _not a secretary_ ” Duncan.

Sarah’s going to die.

No, wait, that’s not true. Sarah’s pretty sure she could – if not kick Rachel Duncan’s ass – at least leave her pretty damn bruised before making a break for it.

But holy shit, talk about getting off on the wrong foot.

While she’s been thinking this Rachel’s hand has been hovering in the space between them, pointed at Sarah like a gun. Her self-preservation instincts finally kick in; she’s a spy and a badass and if she knows Rachel Duncan, Rachel Duncan definitely knows her.

She grabs the hand (professional, shit, maybe she can cobble together some sort of respect) and says, calmly, “Sarah Manning.”

It means something, her name, but she can’t see any reaction from Rachel except an almost imperceptible widening of her eyes. Is that a good thing? What the fuck does that mean, even.

Shit, she’s pretty. She’s really pretty and really dangerous and Sarah’s always had a thing for danger, hasn’t she, that’s why she’s here. She’s gonna be lucky to make it out alive at this point, if she’s pissed Rachel Duncan off. Her odds of survival take a nosedive if the other girl realizes that Sarah thinks she’s _really hot_.

“That does explain the sink surgery,” says Rachel, pulling her hand back – oops, Sarah’s been holding onto it this whole time. (She can still feel the ghost chill of the other girl’s hand in hers, the way it was all cold and smooth against her skin.)

She laughs despite herself, a short sharp sound. Good, she’s not going to die.

“Shit, word travels fast here,” she says, because that whole business with Helena and her own sink didn’t happen _that_ long ago, right? “Not Helena’s fault there wasn’t a hospital nearby.”

Well, it _wasn’t_. And she was bleeding and panicked and – yeah, what happened with the kid wasn’t the _best_ , but mostly all of Sarah is roaring protectiveness for her sister. If Rachel implies that any of it was Helena’s fault, Sarah’s gonna punch her in the nose.

Rachel doesn’t. Instead she says, “What’s your excuse,” smirking. Patronizing as _shit_ , wow, okay.

Something in Sarah says _lie_ , because she gets the feeling that human attachments mean precisely nothing to the girl sitting across from her and Sarah doesn’t want to admit that she’s whipped by a tiny girl from the medical wing.

She winces at the thought and says, “Third time this month shit’s gone sideways. Doctors have started takin’ _bets_.”

Well, it’s just a _tiny_ lie.

Besides, Rachel doesn’t have a chance to call her on it – the door’s whooshing open and Sarah turns her head quickly to get the briefing. Were we talking? Nah, nah, nothing out of the ordinary here. Just pre-mission bonding.

Oh, god, they’re on a _mission_ together. Sarah’s so screwed.

* * *

 _Yeah_ , she thinks in a resigned sort of way as they head to the party, _completely screwed._ Rachel’s in a short grey sheath, like a knife, all sharp lines; she’s still radiating that air of being older and superior to Sarah in every way as they head to the party, even though she’s probably Sarah’s _age_.

Sarah’s neck is stiff from the weight of her bun, all that hair piled up on her head, and so she leans it against the window as they drive on. The glass is cool against her forehead. She really, really wants to kill a man. She’s all jittery, under her skin, her feet flexing on the floor. Her heels are discarded under the seat; Sarah desperately doesn’t want to put them on.

She _hates_ the bloody parties. Give her a clean murder any day, shit.

“If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be,” she asks, watching the city flow by out the window. She’s one part curious, one part needing to be distracted, one part hoping to exchange more than ten words with this girl before they go steal highly confidential information.

There’s a silence and Sarah wants to thump her head against the window in irritation and despair. Then Rachel says “Paris” in a tone of something that sounds like surprise.

Then she says it again: “Paris,” she says, sounding a little dazed, “when it’s cold and clear and the all of the stars are out.”

“I was there once,” Sarah says, “muggy as shit and I had to kill a man.”

She turns to look at Rachel, who is looking out of her own window – Sarah gets the impression that she wants to be standing in front of it, from the way her whole body is tilted towards that tiny glassy square.

“It’s not the same, not really,” Rachel murmurs. “You have to go at night.”

Sarah thinks about it – walking with nowhere to go, your face tilted up towards the heavens. She thinks about Rachel strolling through Paris at night, knowing that she could kill any person who comes near her and remaining completely and utterly alone.

She’s never seen Rachel Duncan. No one has. Does she ever go anywhere? Does she ever talk to anyone?

The car slows before Sarah can say anything and Rachel’s unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out; she tosses a disinterested “You?” over her shoulder, but she almost sounds _rattled_.

“Anywhere but here,” Sarah sighs, grabbing her heels as Rachel steps around to her side of the car. She leans her weight on the other girl’s shoulder as she slings her shoes on. “I _hate_ the bloody parties.”

She gains enthusiasm as she goes, shaking off that melancholy: “Hate the small talk, hate the perverts starin’ down my dress, hate the obnoxious bloody music…”

She can feel Rachel’s shoulder under her hand. Beneath the fabric of her dress it is all bones.

* * *

When Sarah lies – she can’t think of it as play-acting, pretending, pulling on cover, to her it is always _lying_ – she works best when she can assemble a shell out of the people she knows.

She always starts with Cosima, because Cosima is one of the most charming people Sarah’s ever met.

(She didn’t exactly meet her under the best circumstances, either.)

So she lets Cosima’s grin unfurl across her face, foreign on her cheeks. The men eat it up, though, all of those fat bastards. She flashes a bit of leg from the long, long slit up the thigh of her midnight-blue dress and grins. The flirtatiousness is Beth, who wears it easily as a second skin.

Sarah’s always been more aggressive, with her sexuality. Slam-you-up-against-a-wall aggressive. Beth eases her way in and you don’t know she’s gotten you until you’re chewing her gum, writing your phone number on a piece of paper. Sarah’s always admired that; someday maybe she’ll tell Beth she does this, as tribute.

She doesn’t touch her drinks, because she can feel Alison’s irritation.

Sarah doesn’t need to be Helena. She already is.

It’s easy as long as she isn’t herself – she can’t be Sarah, it doesn’t _work_. She always gives the name Tatiana; she plucked it out of nowhere, a name for all their skins stitched together. Has a nice ring to it.

She’s almost forgotten about Rachel, somehow, until she feels a brush of skin-on-skin behind her; her skin flushes but her mind says _she needs you to watch her back_. Thank Christ. The sooner Rachel’s gotten the bloody files the sooner they can be _out of here_ and the sooner Sarah can take her hair down, sleep.

She laughs particularly loudly at an unfunny joke and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

When she judges it’s been enough time she slips free of the party, wipes her glass clean of prints and sets it down on an end table next to her heels. (It is _so_ good to be out of her heels.) She slips her pistol out of the purse she’s been carrying all night and heads down the hallway, easy as you please.

She can see two of the bodyguards and – oh, there’s Rachel.

Alright, only one bodyguard.

 _Shit_ , Sarah thinks, watching as Rachel takes down the first bodyguard with ease (damn, she’s good) before the second one slams her into the wall. Sarah doesn’t even have to think – she’s running, years of _trust your partner_ engrained into her mind. Especially recently, with Helena constantly at her back; if you are sent in with someone, you have to keep them safe.

She can hear the roar of pain from the man as Rachel stabs him in the thigh, but it’s muffled like it’s underwater. She puts all of her strength behind her pistol and clubs the guy across the face.

He falls, and Sarah pants a breath or two before looking at Rachel, the blood drying scarlet all over her dress. _Not very perfect now, are we,_ she thinks in a giddy mixture of smug satisfaction and adrenaline high.

“Blood all over your dress,” she says, before she can stop herself.

Rachel turns, rubs at her neck. Sarah can feel the pressure of the other girl’s eyes on her; Sarah’s kind of stuck herself, the way Rachel’s dress is pushed around her thighs, the wink of knives from her garterbelt, the flush in her cheeks.

The silence stretches like taffy and Sarah wonders—

“You’ve lost your purse,” Rachel says, perfectly composed. Oh. “And your heels.”

Just kidding, Rachel Duncan is an emotionless robot bitch. For a second Sarah feels oddly hurt before she convinces herself she’s just kind of pissed.

“Funny way to say thanks for savin’ your _life_ ,” she spits – damnit, her hair’s all messed up from running over here, she can’t go back to the party like this. Fuck her hair. Fuck the party. Fuck Rachel Duncan.

Oh, _wait_.

She shoves her pistol between her teeth (carefully, obviously, she’s not an idiot) and starts pulling at her hair.

“No, don’t,” Rachel says, “you’re only going to make it worse.”

Then she steps closer, pulls at Sarah’s elbow. Sarah’s heart thuds in her chest as she lets Rachel pull her hair into place with practiced fingers. She can feel the other girl’s body heat behind her and a little voice is whispering – _maybe you were wrong, maybe she’s not a robot after all, maybe maybe maybe_.

Then that heat pulls away and Sarah hears Rachel swallow, hears her say “There,” soft as – as – just…softer than Sarah’s heard in a while.

She turns to look at the other girl, who is looking at her with unexpectedly wide eyes. _Hey_ , she thinks of saying, _you wanna, maybe, go—_

“Now,” Rachel says, sudden and sharp, “there’s still one man left in the library.”

Sarah’s heart pounds and all her adrenaline bursts into her limbs. She’s ready, god, she’s ready as anything.

The man in the library isn’t even a challenge, not to Sarah singing on a battle high, the back of her neck still tingling from Rachel’s fingers on it, all of her screaming readiness for a fight. He doesn’t even last a minute. It’s a quick chain of movements, leg-elbow-fist, and he’s down.

Sarah closes her eyes, and breathes. The adrenaline leaves her in a rush, and then she’s just tired.

* * *

Sarah’s muscles are still jangling when she walks into her apartment, muffled sounds of explosions coming from the television. Oh, Helena’s home. For some inexplicable reason there is space in Helena’s twisted Ukrainian heart for Mythbusters – Sarah doesn’t ask, as long as there’s still room for The Walking Dead on their DVR.

Sarah skirts along the outside of the living room, around the edge of the couch where she can just see a haystack of blonde hair; Helena’s probably in a deep trance of watching things explode in slow motion, but Sarah really doesn’t want to be stopped.

She’s almost made it to the door when Helena’s rasping voices calls, “He _llo_ , sestra.”

Shit. So close. Sarah closes her eyes for a second and then, resigned, heads for the couch. If she doesn’t go Helena will sit outside her door, humming broken bars of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” without even realizing that’s what she’s doing. Sarah can’t handle the guilt trip.

“Hey, Helena,” she says, flopping down on the couch and kicking off her shoes. She doesn’t want to give up the dress for a lost cause, but on the other hand she’s down and she’s not getting up to take it off.

Helena flops over so her head is in Sarah’s lap, letting out a low hum when Sarah rests her hand on Helena’s head. Onscreen, Jamie lets out a whoop and Helena makes a low growling chuckle in the back of her throat.

“How was mission?” Helena asks. “Did you take many lives?”

“You and me got different definitions of ‘success’, weirdo,” Sarah mutters. Helena turns to look at her, shrugging, the bone of her shoulder jabbing Sarah in the hip. The explosions onscreen light up Helena’s face in reds and golds, and send lights flickering in the depths of her pupils as she narrows her eyes. With a small grunt she hoists herself up from Sarah’s lap and pivots so she is facing Sarah, legs crossed neatly under herself on the couch. Her head pulls to the side.

“You were…hm…not alone, no?” she asks.

“What makes ya think that,” Sarah asks in response. Helena hums, waves her hand around her head, her wrist dangling limply.

“Your hair,” she says in the same neutral tone she always uses. “It is…pretty. Very pretty.”

She blinks at Sarah, like that answers Sarah’s question, and Sarah’s afraid for a second that there’s some trace of Rachel’s fingers in her hair. She feels the stupid urge to take it down, like she’s hiding something

She doesn’t move to take it down. She doesn’t _want_ to.

“Rachel Duncan,” says Sarah, grabbing for the remote to turn down the volume. “You know her?”

Helena’s brow, wrinkled with displeasure as Sarah turns down the TV, refolds itself into creases of thought as she considers. Sarah thinks for a second she’s lost her train of thought before Helena sucks in a breath and emotionlessly rattles off an _extremely_ detailed list of Rachel’s upbringing, known kills, fighting style, and possible weaknesses.

Then there’s a beat of silence where Helena looks at Sarah, like she’s expecting praise.

“Shit,” Sarah says. “Where’d you learn _that_.”

Helena looks at her, swallows; the look on her face is the look she gets whenever someone brings up her past, a slow drowning. Then she blinks, looks down, says, “I don’t know,” casually. She picks up the remote and turns the volume back up; it’s a commercial break, and a mother picks up her daughter and spins her around and around. Helena watches them.

“You know all the gossip,” she says, distantly, and the conversation is over.

Sarah doesn’t think Helena learned this from gossip at all. A part of her wants to reach out and hug the girl sitting next to her, but she doesn’t think it’ll be welcome. So she gets up, pads to the kitchen, and fills a bowl full of Lucky Charms. Then she walks back in to slide it onto the table in front of her sister before heading to her bedroom to get ready for bed.

She looks at her hair in the mirror for a long time, her heart thudding double-time against her ribs, before she sighs and moves to take it down.

* * *

They’re shuffled together again once or twice; usually the missions that need Rachel and the missions that need Sarah don’t overlap, though, so most of the time she’s with Beth or – more and more – Helena.

But there’s a few times, and though Sarah’s never really been one for knives (she’s a gun girl, through and through) she’s…growing to appreciate them.

Not right now, though, she thinks, her teeth gritted as she coaxes the improvised needle through her side with a hiss. The twat had gotten a knife in her side before she could get a gun between his eyes, and by the time he was down Sarah was too damn late to save her own skin. She leans back against the wall, shuddering, and ties a sloppy knot in the dental floss she’s just shoved through her side. Her forehead is damp with sweat.

All of her is damp with sweat.

Sarah pushes herself off the wall with a grunt and stumbles one step, two, before regaining her footing. She needs to get proper medical care, and fast. She’s close to HQ, but the thought of going to the hospital wing makes her feel, suddenly and viscerally, like throwing up. She rattles through her list of people – Alison’s definitely out, Cosima would either flip out or try and give her a robot liver, Beth’s out of the country, Helena…no.

 _Rachel Duncan owes you one_ , Sarah’s brain supplies helpfully, and Sarah remembers, fuzzily, that she’d taken down one more man than Rachel on their first mission. Thanks, brain.

Rachel Duncan owes her one, and lives in one of the supplied living blocks in HQ – she’d mentioned it offhandedly when Sarah complained about the long walk back to her place or (ugh) public transportation.

Sarah feels like maybe she should wonder if Rachel’s even around or if she’s willing to stitch up Sarah’s side; maybe she should consider that this is dangerous, if only because her heart’s started thumping and it’ll push all of the blood straight out of her side.

She doesn’t think about any of that. She just drags her carcass down to HQ and prays she’ll find the right room.

* * *

She finds the right room. It is drab and anonymous in a line of similarly drab and anonymous rooms. It’s just fucking _weird_ imagining Rachel Duncan strolling back here. Maybe she powers down, like a robot.

…Okay, that’s mean, but Sarah still snorts to herself as she slams against the wall, all of her weight resting on the cold surface of it as she fiddles with the keycard slider. Her mind’s all fogged up but muscle memory never lets her down – she’d spent a whole afternoon with Cosima learning how to exploit that trick (“But you can’t tell _anyone_ , okay, or they’re gonna _kill_ me. Seriously. I’ll be sleeping with the fishes.”) and her fingers have it memorized.

There! Door open. Sarah stumbles in and looks around. It is empty as shit. There’s unornamented white walls and a bed in the center of the room with fucking _hospital corners_. There’s furniture around but none of it looks used. One door leads to a bathroom; another to a kitchen. There is nothing _anywhere_ to suggest that a human being has been here.

Sarah collapses on the edge of the bed and prepares to bide her time.

She’s slipping in and out of a haze – a couple times she swears she hears the door open but when she blinks herself back to consciousness there’s nothing. Sometimes she thinks she’s in medical and some random person she doesn’t know is stitching away at her side. She drifts.

When she hears the door click again she doesn’t think much of it until—

Sarah thinks a jumbled, incoherent string of curse words, because there was a motion blur and now Rachel Duncan is straddling Sarah on her bed, a knife pressed to Sarah’s throat and a knee pressed right to the stitches.

Well. At least she didn’t slit Sarah’s throat.

Sarah manages, somehow, to talk Rachel off, talk Rachel into sewing her up. The other girl snipes at her but with Sarah’s mind like this it all makes perfect sense – she’s just afraid, like an animal lashing out. She _cares_ , Sarah thinks with a woozy clarity.

Of course, she says it like this: “This is a dangerous habit and you’re going to get yourself killed.” But Sarah gets it.

“Love you too,” she calls after Rachel’s retreating back – she’s going to get medical supplies, see, she cares – because she gets it. Totally. She looks at Rachel, narrows her eyes a little to bring the other girl into focus. She’s so _sad_. And deadly. And really fucking pretty.

Oh wait, shit, Rachel volunteered to help sew her up. A part of Sarah didn’t think that was actually going to _work_.

She manages to pull herself up with what she’s sure is an _incredibly_ attractive sound and then she’s fumbling for her zipper, logic telling her that Rachel needs to be able to get to the wound, logic _forgetting_ that this maneuver is going to leave her shirtless in front of a girl she may have the hots for. On her bed.

Sarah doesn’t even have time to consider that before Rachel blurts, “Is that _dental floss?_ ” in a tone of scandalized horror.

“You work with what you’ve got, okay, shit,” Sarah says, pain making her lash back, pain clawing at her like an animal because she sat up _way_ too fast.

“Your blood is going to smell like spearmint,” Rachel says under her breath, but Sarah thinks that’s Rachel-speak for _I’m not mad_ so she lets out a breath through her nose and settles back, rests all her weight on her hands so she doesn’t fall off Rachel’s bed.

Rachel curls up, catlike, next to Sarah, and then works on Sarah’s stitches while managing to complain about their quality. Sarah bickers back on autopilot; she thinks she did just fine considering she was _bleeding_ and – for some reason! – an enormous spy organization didn’t think to teach its members basic self-surgery.

Or maybe they just skipped out on little orphan girls they scooped up off the street. What _ever_.

“Missed the – class,” she spits, hissing from pain as Rachel works the needle in and out of her skin (and no, she’s _not_ hot like this, brow furrowed in concentration, hand still on the needle, she’s _not_ ), “I guess, between – what – Ass Kicking 101 and Advanced – Lookin’ Good in a Jumpsuit.”

She doesn’t even know what she’s _saying_ , shit. At some point her hand’s clenched on Rachel’s knee, from the pain; she doesn’t know why Rachel hasn’t knocked it off, only that Rachel’s knee is warm and solid beneath her palm and it feels something like an anchor.

It also means that she can feel the small tremble beneath Rachel’s skin as the other girl huffs through her nose.

“And of course you passed both, with flying colors,” the blonde says, which is Rachel-speak for—

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, her voice suddenly rough and deep, because the thought of Rachel noticing her in a jumpsuit and _telling_ Sarah that she’d noticed is a little much to handle.

And then Rachel’s cutting the thread, typing a knot at the end of it, and looking up. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is slightly parted; _kiss her_ , Sarah thinks urgently, _kiss her, Manning, go on, do it_.

She can feel her heartbeat in every part of her body, especially the wound that Rachel just stitched up, and – Sarah _can’t_. She doesn’t want to lose this. She doesn’t want to fuck up the way she always seems to fuck up.

And so she _goes_ , fast, before she can kiss Rachel on the mouth, before Rachel can push her away or stab her with a needle or _anything_ else, really, anything at all. She’s zipping up her jumpsuit when she realizes she’s just kind of – left Rachel there, with nothing.

She turns around and looks at Rachel, who’s still watching Sarah with wide eyes. She looks so still. Sarah wishes she was fluent in Rachel, wishes she knew what to say.

“Thanks,” she says instead, and then she flees.

* * *

Beth’s back in town within the week and the two of them are healed enough within the month to get back to sparring; shit, Sarah missed Beth. More specifically, Sarah missed _fighting_ with Beth, because Beth is the only one who fights close enough to Sarah.

Close _enough_.

“You’re too sloppy, dumbass,” Beth says, getting in under Sarah’s guard _again_ and sweeping her, clean, down to the floor. Sarah lets out a grunt as her spine hits the ground with a thud but otherwise remains silent.

Beth sighs and flops down next to her, neat crossed legs. “So, Beth,” she says to herself, “there’s a _guy_.”

“Piss off,” Sarah spits, but she takes the hand Beth offers and pulls herself up, sits with her legs pulled up in front of her. The better to pound her head against her knees, anyways.

Beth looks at her, pauses. Then she rolls her eyes and keeps narrating her inane fucking conversation with herself. “So, Beth, there’s a _girl_. And I’m afraid Beth’s going to judge me for it even though Beth is _totally fine_ with _every kind of sexuality_ —”

“Round 2,” Sarah barks, “right now, let’s go.” She stands up and watches Beth with raised eyebrows. The other girl blows some hair out of her face with a huff that sounds far too knowing and stands.

“Okay,” she says, “fine, but when you get your ass kicked – _again_ – you’re telling me what’s up.”

“And when you get yours—” Sarah begins, but Beth’s already whirling into action, her leg snapping up towards Sarah’s jaw; Sarah ducks around it, grabs Beth’s leg and _pulls_ Beth forward, but Beth’s already swinging her fist back towards Sarah’s face.

It connects, sending Sarah stumbling backwards. Beth’s racing towards her, but: feint, Sarah’s footing is perfectly steady and she kicks, fast, towards Beth’s center. It’s easy, it’s all easy. After a while individual moves fade into that blur of adrenaline, the give-and-take, and Sarah rises above it and sort of…floats, not really thinking about anything.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t save her ass from its inevitable kicking.

She wakes up from herself on the ground, Beth straddling her chest; at this point she can’t stop herself from thinking of Rachel in the same position, the press of the knife against her throat and Rachel’s eyes just as cold and sharp—

Shit. She has got it _bad_.

“Off, you bitch,” she grunts, wriggling a little under Beth’s weight, her wrists straining against Beth’s easy hold.

“You gonna tell Mama Beth what’s on your mind?” Beth asks, unable to keep from laughing at her own goddamn hilarity.

“Not with you callin’ yourself ‘Mama Beth’ I’m not,” Sarah says back, and Beth’s mouth twists.

“Yeah, okay, that was weird,” she says, slipping off of Sarah’s torso and sitting, crossed-legged, next to her on the mat. “But! You’re _kind_ of being equally weird, so.”

Sarah groans, runs hands through her hair. “There’s a girl,” she says grudgingly, and Beth legitimately _whoops_ in excitement.

“I _knew_ it,” she says, and then stops when she sees Sarah staring at her. Beth clears her throat, gestures in a way that clearly says _continue_.

 “That’s it,” Sarah says pointedly. “That’s all you get.”

“ _No_ no no no no no,” Beth says, shaking her head slowly. “No way I’m letting you get away with that, asshole. Talk.”

“No,” Sarah says, “because _you’re_ gonna tell Alison, and Alison’ll tell all of her petty medical bitches, and then the everyone in the whole bloody building’s gonna know.”

“Fair point,” Beth says with a shrug, “you know I’m weak for Alison’s puppy dog face and threats of murder.”

The two of them stare into space for a second, contemplative, before Beth returns to studying Sarah.

“Seriously though,” she says, unusually somber, “if you don’t want it to get out I can keep secrets. I’m a spy for a _reason_ , dumbass.”

When Sarah doesn’t say anything, Beth lets out a sharp sigh and moves, gracefully as a cat, back to standing. “Alright, your choice,” she says. “But if I find out who it is on my own and she’s still leaving you moping I’m going to kick her ass.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Sarah mutters before she can stop herself.

Thankfully, Beth’s already gone.

* * *

She doesn’t even think about Beth’s fucking _ominous_ final words until Rachel Duncan seats herself delicately across the table from Sarah where she’s sitting at the caf, contemplating her frankly inedible hamburger with deep despair.

“Your sister gave me the shovel talk,” says the blonde, words ringing with some sort of pleasure.

Sarah whips her head up, stares.

 “What the hell,” she says, because what the hell. She and Beth look alike but they’re not _sisters_ , first off, second off what the fuck, Beth—

“Wait,” she says, blinking rapidly. No. Sarah has a sister. Sarah has a sister who had _looked_ at her when she’d come in the night after the stitches, her eyes burning into Sarah like a sniper sight.

“No,” she mutters to herself, to Rachel, to whoever, “what the hell.” Because this is _really_ strange, even for Helena.

 “I’m flattered, really,” Rachel continues airily, gazing off into some bullshit middle distance, “that she considered me enough of a threat to say hello.”

She flicks her eyes with _incredible_ intent back to Sarah. She raises her eyebrows.

“Does she do this with everyone?”

Sarah gives herself a minute to picture Helena coming after Cosima or Alison and the thought is so horrifying that she slams her head on the table.

“ _No_ ,” Sarah says emphatically, “no, no, she definitely doesn’t do this with bloody _everyone_. Shit, Alison wouldn’t have _ever_ recovered.”

“What’d she do,” she asks, rolling her head back up to look at Rachel – hey, at least she doesn’t have any (visible) bruises. Can’t have been that bad.

“Nothing much,” says Rachel, seemingly in agreement as she pursues her salad with homicidal intent. “She did draw the two of you repeatedly on my wall, though.”

No way.

“In permanent marker.”

_No way._

“The _director’s_ marker.”

 _No bloody way_.

“Holy _shite_ ,” groans Sarah in horrified anguish, running her hands through her hair and physically pushing herself away from the table. Why. Why is this her life. Why is this her _sister_. “I’m disownin’ her, I’m shipping her back to bloody Ukraine.”

“She’d probably go, if you asked her to,” says Rachel.

Well, of course she would. Helena would do anything for Sarah and that is a shitty thing to know about a person. Sarah should have something to say, some sort of witty bantering response, but she can’t – she can’t stop thinking about what it is, to have someone love you that much. Sometimes Sarah can’t even think about it; it’s like trying to wrap her head around the sun.

“So,” Rachel blurts, looking slightly horrified with herself (she kinda should be, Sarah thinks sourly, that’s not the kind of thing you _bring up_ ), “don’t distract me, I’m the wounded party here and I _demand_ compensation.”

Well _that_ Sarah can work with. She smears a fry through some ketchup, considering, and hums as she thinks.

“What _if_ ,” she says, raising her eyebrows, “I get you too drunk to _remember_ my sister threatened you?”

This is an excellent plan because it involves getting Rachel drunk but also getting _Sarah_ drunk. There are many, many reasons Sarah would like both of these things to occur.

Rachel looks at her, looks away, and Sarah’s prepared to sigh her way through some bullshit _I’m an international agent_ excuse, but then Rachel sets down her fork.

“That would require a _lot_ of alcohol,” she says, but she’s smiling faintly and Sarah grins back.

* * *

They get drunk. Well first they go by Rachel’s place so she can change out of the jumpsuit (Sarah is not a fan of the jumpsuit, likes jeans and combat boots and leather jackets) into this white dress, criminally short, and so Sarah can see her sister’s handiwork. Maybe if she thinks long enough about the former, she thinks moodily, she can forget the latter.

 _Thanks_ , Helena.

Anyways! They go to a bar Sarah knows – not her usual; she’s filled with this stupid desire to impress the other girl, for some reason. (“Some reason,” yeah, right.) They go to the bar and Sarah orders shots and they’re having a _good time_ , hey, who knew—

Then Sarah sees them. Six guys, dressed to the nines and ridiculously bloody obvious. They’re practically oozing badass. Their instructor should be shot.

Actually, all of them should be shot.

“What,” Rachel murmurs, her gaze intent and hot on Sarah’s face – not the _time_ , Manning.

“Six of ‘em,” Sarah murmurs back, “suits, bloody _enormous_ muscles,” because, hey, it’s true.

“Are you going to fight them or seduce them? Inquiring minds,” says Rachel, still not looking away from Sarah.

Either she’s completely oblivious to how bad Sarah wants to close the distance and kiss her or she’s testing Sarah.

Wait, this is Rachel Duncan. That isn’t even a question.

Sarah snorts, says: “Fight them, come _on_. Really? _Not_ my type.”

Rachel’s face kind of – lights up, a little bit, beneath the makeup and the fuckin’ façade or whatever, and she’s grinning.

“Glad to hear it,” she says, and Sarah’s smiling back, giddy—

…So busy smiling, in fact, that she completely misses the man approaching Rachel until he’s reaching for her throat. _Trust your partner_ blares in Sarah’s head like a klaxon but it’s too late, there’s another guy on her. She whacks him with her elbow, crashes a combat boot into his knee, and heaves herself easily over the bar.

“Get out,” she snaps at the bartender, who’s shaking behind the bar, “seriously, scatter,” and he scrambles to his feet as she reaches for a bottle of some expensive shit and just _smashes_ it on the bar. Booze goes everywhere and Sarah whirls, slashes the broken glass of it across the face of the bland asshole who’s approaching her. He howls and stumbles, face a mess of red lines, and Sarah takes the opportunity to slam his head into the bar. Repeatedly.

She hopes he gets alcohol in his eyes. Maybe it’ll distract from the upcoming head injury and the massive scarring.

Or maybe not. Who knows?

Point is: he collapses in a pile of limbs and Sarah vaults back over the bar to deal with Kneecapped Asshole; she’s about to take him out when she hears a _crack_ behind her and the sound of a body tumbling down.

 _Thanks, Rachel_ , she thinks, giddy from battle-high as she smashes the bottle over the last guy’s head.

Down he goes; Sarah pivots to look at Rachel, who’s standing completely unruffled in the middle of several bodies. She’s not wearing any shoes; like this she’s Sarah’s height, almost too small. There’s blood all over her and she is fucking _beautiful_.

 _Fuck it,_ Sarah thinks, dropping the bottle. _Fuck it_. She hops over the body between them and then she’s next to Rachel, her chest heaving.

“You got blood all over you,” Sarah blurts, like an idiot, and then she kisses her.

Rachel’s lips against Sarah’s are warm and soft. Her mouth tastes a little bit like blood.

(This isn’t a bad thing.)

But – she isn’t kissing back. She’s just kind of standing there, and Sarah’s stomach sinks like a stone. Oh. Oh shit. Oh shit, she _knew_ this was a bad idea. Sarah Manning, international fuckup.

She pushes back, fast; her hands are moving to push through her hair, shit, and Rachel’s just looking at her, still, Rachel never stops looking at her.

“Shit,” Sarah says, flustered, “wait, did you not—”

Rachel lets out this inarticulate noise and Sarah doesn’t have time to consider what that means before Rachel’s hands are fisted in Sarah’s jacket and _pulling_ her forward and then, god, Rachel’s lips are against hers again. Sarah’s thoughts aren’t coherent – it’s somewhere between an angelic chorus and an endless chain of fist pumps. Rachel is kissing her _back_.

Not _comfortably_ , but. Kissing her back.

Sarah tilts her head, deepens the kiss, lets her hands rest on Rachel’s hips. Rachel’s hands slowly loosen on her jacket until her hands are just pressed against Sarah’s chest and Sarah wonders, idly, how long they can keep this going.

Then the asshole on the floor wakes up.

That answers that question; Sarah lets out a breath through her nose and kicks the guy in the head, blindly. Then she breaks the kiss – regrettable as it is – to rest her head against Rachel’s and say, lightly, “Did I forget to mention that you look _really hot_ with blood all over you.”

“You might have,” Rachel says, a smile pulling at the edges of her mouth, and she looks really kissable and – hey – Sarah can kiss her now. So she does. Rachel’s arms loop around Sarah’s neck and pull her, flush, against Rachel’s body – Sarah’s sure blood’s getting all over her and the thought makes her tug at Rachel’s lower lip with her teeth, hungry. Rachel makes a sound and rolls her hips forward; Sarah’s kind of pissed at herself, to be honest, because it looks like they could have been doing this _ages_ ago. No reason to waste time, though, so she rolls her hips right back until they’re grinding on each other in the middle of a heap of bodies.

Apparently Rachel realizes this at about the same time because she neatly removes her arms from Sarah’s neck and takes a step back, tongue swiping over her lower lip in a way that makes Sarah want to kiss her again, desperately.

“There’s a time and a place, I believe,” she says, but it’s breathy and she’s still eyeing Sarah’s lips so that takes the sting out of it.

“What,” Sarah says, raising her eyebrows, “thought the bodies added to the—” she gestures vaguely, with her hand, “ambience.”

“They do not,” Rachel says, looking for her shoes – she makes a face of visible disgust when she finds one with gore all over the heel, and crouches to wipe it on some poor soul’s tuxedo.

“The company makes up for it, of course,” she says loftily, almost grinning.

“’Course,” Sarah says, shrugging and grabbing Rachel’s other shoe. Rachel leans on Sarah’s shoulder to slip her heels on, like a reverse of Sarah (seems like a long time ago, now), and when she’s done Sarah holds out her elbow like she’s offering Rachel a dance.

“Hope you’ll let me walk you home,” she says, wide-eyed, “all sorts of danger out there, yeah?”

“You’re ridiculous,” says Rachel, and she leans in and kisses Sarah on the mouth, dry and soft, before taking Sarah’s elbow and letting Sarah lead them out of the bar.

* * *

“I believe the director knows we’re dating,” says Rachel contemplatively from where she’s leaning over a desk, typing merrily away at a laptop.

“ _What?_ ” Sarah gasps – she’d be more eloquent, but she’s a little busy ruthlessly beating up the two men protecting the aforementioned laptop; their skulls make a nice hollow crack as she thumps them together and then she spins, kicks one right in the nuts in a move she learned – surprisingly enough – from Alison.

(“I was a baller _ina_ ,” the girl slurs, wobbling on the couch as she makes a pointed gesture; Beth, a constant presence at Alison’s side, neatly rescues the bottle of wine from Alison’s hand before it can slosh over onto the pastel pink couch.

“Really,” Sarah says, smirking, her own glass almost full. Alison blinks at her rapidly, obviously offended, before lurching her way off the couch. She stands solidly enough on her own two feet, and when she launches into a spin it’s only a little crooked.

Then she’s down on the ground, but hey. It’s the thought that counts.

“What if you kicked out at the end,” Beth muses, “like…bam.”

“ _Bam_ ,” Sarah echoes wryly, raising her eyebrows. From the couch next to her Cosima lets out a chainsaw rip of a snore; Sarah likes to think she’s agreeing.

“Don’t _mock_ me, Manning,” Beth says, standing; she’s more steady than Alison, but not by much. Her spin is a lot more sloppy, but her kick out is neat as opening a razor blade.

“ _Bam_ ,” she says, grinning manically, and Sarah can feel her own grin uncoiling across her face.)

She’s about to turn around and say something else, but then an absolute _tidal wave_ of goons comes pouring in the door. Sarah groans, cracks her neck, and dives back in.

“Explain, please,” she calls over her shoulder, unrolling the taser cuff from her wrist and merrily setting to work with it. “And hurry up on the bloody hackin’, would ya?”

“It’s not my specialty,” Rachel snaps, “and that’s exactly my point. Anyone could have covered this mission. Morrison would have been an excellent choice.”

“But we’re here,” Sarah says, realization slowly dawning as she jolts a guy in the neck, kicks his legs out from under him so he knocks over another man as he falls. “And what,” she continues, breaking the next man’s fingers and slamming the heel of her hand into his jaw as he howls ( _nasty_ cracking noise, and he’s out), “you think it’s a big plot, then? Director wants us to make superspy babies or some shit?”

Rachel lets out a pleased sound as she does some hacking thing – it’s the kind of sound that _really_ makes Sarah wish she wasn’t in the middle of a fight and could instead put Rachel’s mouth to better use. But anyways.

She takes her anger out on the next guy’s kneecap. It’s satisfying.

“Fostering in-house relationships, I’d expect,” Rachel says with a sigh. Then she pauses. “Alternatively, topside is hoping to hasten what they’d consider the inevitable demise of our relationship.”

“They think by putting us on missions together we’re gonna hate each other and break up,” Sarah says, clapping her hands against the last guy’s eardrums and kicking him hard in the groin to make his fall faster. That’s all of them; she’s panting, a little, and glowing with sweat.

“They underestimate how…nice you look after a fight,” Rachel says calmly, like she’s discussing the weather.

“ _Tell_ me you’re done with the hackin’, Rachel,” Sarah groans, making her way over to the desk, doing the usual hop over possible corpses. “You can’t just say things like that and _leave_ ‘em.”

Rachel looks up at her and grins, slow, but before she can say anything Sarah has her pinned against the desk and she’s kissing her. She still can’t get over how amazing kissing Rachel is: the way the other girl’s mouth parts a little bit under hers every time, like she’s surprised, and that moment where Rachel’s hands settle on Sarah’s skin, hips back face, like she’s making sure Sarah’s still there.

Then she starts kissing her way down Sarah’s neck and Sarah makes a low whine of protest – “Come on,” she gasps, “can’t you – wait ‘til we’re back at HQ?”

“You taste like sweat,” Rachel murmurs serenely, and _fuck_ that should not be a good enough explanation. But it is. It totally is, and then Rachel sucks at the skin below Sarah’s collarbone, right at the edge of her jumpsuit, and Sarah hisses between her teeth and thinks, fuck it, why not, she’s going to fuck her girlfriend on a desk right next to important files and a bunch of bodies, why the hell not.

Then a klaxon goes off, and Sarah hears the sound of many, _many_ pairs of orderly footsteps. Rachel lets out a high noise of frustration in the back of her throat that does funny things to Sarah’s stomach and bites _savagely_ at the skin above Sarah’s breast before leaning back, adjusting the collar of Sarah’s jumpsuit appraisingly, and kissing her hard and firm on the mouth.

“I am going to _kill someone_ ,” she hisses, and Sarah can believe it. “Rain check,” she mutters in response, swiveling and checking the charge on her cuff. (Thanks, Cosima.) Next to her Rachel picks up the laptop and methodically throws it on the ground with a spray of sparks. Her nostrils flare.

“Let’s get this over with,” she snaps, and Sarah snorts at the idea of these men coming through the door, thinking they can take the two of ‘em.

You don’t stop two spies having sex without _consequences_.

* * *

They do make it back to HQ. Mostly. There are a couple…pauses, pauses that aren’t going to end up on the report later, pauses that leave bite marks all over Sarah’s skin, pauses that smear Rachel’s lipstick all around her lips. And also Sarah’s lips.

(If the plan with putting the two of them on missions together is to make them break up…well. It’s not working.)

They make it back to HQ, and it takes them a little while but they do make it back to Rachel’s room.

(Rachel might have bruises on her back. From walls. Maybe. That’s not going in the report, either.)

Rachel’s upgraded her keycard slider to a thumbprint reader, which makes Sarah want to laugh sometimes – who’s going to get in, besides her? okay, maybe Helena – but right now it’s just making her impatient.

“Stop,” Rachel snaps breathily as Sarah keeps kissing down her neck, hands tracing Rachel’s body through her jumpsuit, impatient and horny as hell. “I’m not going to have sex with you on the _floor outside of my room_.”

“Bet it gets you hot,” Sarah murmurs, letting the words vibrate against Rachel’s throat, and Rachel lets out a breathy little sound and then, thank God, the door opens. Rachel pulls Sarah, Sarah pushes Rachel, they’re in through the door and then, oops, up against the wall.

“Mm, so close,” Sarah growls, her forehead rocking against Rachel’s as she presses her body against her girlfriend’s; she can’t feel a single shred of regret. Oh well.

“Shut up and kiss me,” Rachel spits back roughly, and Sarah does. This time it’s greedy, rough, Rachel’s tongue pushing at Sarah’s lips and then into Sarah’s mouth, against her teeth. Sarah fumbles for the zipper of Rachel’s jumpsuit, shoves it down gracelessly with a protest from the fabric, runs her hands under the tight, sweat-soaked fabric of the tank underneath and across the toned muscles of Rachel’s stomach. She shoves the tank off – Rachel lifts her arms obligingly and lets out a high sound as Sarah throws it across the room – and begins kissing her way down Rachel’s neck, fumbling for the clasp on her bra and unhooking it in time to close her mouth around Rachel’s nipple.

Rachel _moans_ , a deep and throaty sound, and tangles her fingers in Sarah’s hair, and pulls demandingly. Sarah sucks lightly at the nipple, teasing, and then at a sharp yank of her hair moves down, shucking Rachel’s jumpsuit and peeling off the tight bicycle shorts she’s wearing underneath it, the underwear underneath _that_.

At this point she’s down on her knees; she can hear Rachel’s breathing, rough and throaty, and she can hear her own. She doesn’t say anything witty, just leans in and _licks_.  

Rachel lets out another completely obscene moan and Sarah takes that as a sign to keep going, licking steady circles around Rachel’s clit. She can feel Rachel’s fingers in her hair, still, and there’s something comforting in the feeling, the way they twist tighter as Sarah flicks her tongue _here_ , sucks Rachel’s clit into her mouth, plays Rachel like an instrument.

“ _Sarah_ ,” Rachel whines, and comes. There’s a beat or two where Sarah leans back onto her haunches, swipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, before there’s an insistent tugging on the collar of her jumpsuit and Rachel’s kissing the taste of herself out of Sarah’s mouth, hands possessive and not close enough to Sarah’s skin.

“My turn,” she murmurs huskily into Sarah’s ear, nipping at the lobe as she efficiently sheds the rest of her jumpsuit; she’s already peeling Sarah’s off as she shoves her towards the bed. Rachel isn’t one to waste time.

And she’s never been gladder, Sarah thinks fervently, her heartbeat thudding between her legs as Rachel pushes her onto the bed, straddles her hips. The blonde looks at her for a second, eyes unfathomable and dark, then leans in and kisses her.

She tastes a little bit like the barrel of a gun. Sarah’s never, ever been gladder.

* * *

Helena and Sarah are on a rooftop in one of the grand United States, one of the square ones in the middle, and the sun is _baking_ Sarah’s skin through the black fabric of her jumpsuit.

Also, Helena won’t stop whistling to herself as she sets up the sniper rifle. This is not charming. It has actually, Sarah thinks grimly, _never_ been charming.

Narrowing her eyes from where she’s sitting next to her sister, Sarah places the song – “Twisted Nerve,” really. _Really_.

“Oi,” she snaps, running her hair through her fingers, “knock it off with the _Kill Bill_ shit, wouldja?”

“Roaring rampage of revenge,” Helena says in delight, turning to grin at Sarah before returning to the process of setting up the gun. Sarah checks the clock on her phone – burner – does some fast math, comes to the conclusion that there’s still time before their target shows up. Sarah doesn’t even need to be here; it’s more of this “your sister’s keeper” bull. If the higher-ups had their way Sarah doesn’t even think Helena would be able to _piss_ without Sarah being there.

Thank god for small mercies.

Anyways: anyone worth their salt knows Helena could do this mission _fine_ on their own. It takes two to tango, but it takes one to brutally murder someone from several stories away.

 _Fuck it_ , Sarah thinks, opening her contacts in her phone – scrolls past a few takeout places, Childcare, Comics House, few more takeout places (she can kill a man fifty different ways, but cooking’s a little past her), clicks Dunkin Donuts.

>Unknown Number  
 _sos target running late & sister channeling fictional assassins_

>Unknown Number  
 _shes WHISTLING_

>Dunkin Donuts  
 _Y r u txting if ur on mission?_

>Unknown Number  
 _y r u abbreviating so much if youre not_

>Dunkin Donuts  
 _Txting = future. U kno this._

Sarah lets out an audible snort; she’s grinning like an idiot at her phone.

“Stop, please,” Helena calls from where she’s crouched over her sniper rifle. “Your puppy love is sickening.”

This is _so_ hypocritical coming from the girl who pretty much makes sweet love to every piece of food that enters her mouth. Sarah flips her off and says, “Don’t even talk, Helena, everyone remembers Jesse.”

“Mm,” Helena sighs, “he was a good boyfriend. Was a shame. Poor Jesse did not like blood.”

 _Understatement of the century_ , Sarah thinks, returning her attention to her phone.

>Unknown Number  
 _how can i take you seriously_

>Unknown Number  
 _how can ANYONE take you seriously_

>Dunkin Donuts  
 _Txt w/1 hand. Slit throats w/1 hand._

>Dunkin Donuts  
 _How can ne1 take u seriously w/ur attention on ur phone? U culd b dead in 10 secs._

>Unknown Number  
 _you love me_

>Dunkin Donuts  
 _Yes. Point still stands._

Sarah stares at the message for a few seconds, her heart doing that stupid beating thing. It should seriously knock that off. How’s Sarah supposed to get anything done with her heart beating like that.

Then her phone buzzes again.

>Dunkin Donuts  
 _R u going 2 kill a man or not?_

>Unknown Number  
 _not even my mission dumbass_

Behind her she hears a delighted cackle that translates to _headshot_.

>Unknown Number  
 _gotta go_

She pauses. Closes her eyes. Types, sends, shoves her phone in her pocket.

>Unknown Number  
 _gotta go. love you._

 

**Author's Note:**

> That blonde, she's a bomb, she's an atom bomb.  
> Rigged up, and ready to drop!  
> Bad news, I'm a fuse, and I've met my match.  
> So stand back, it's about to go off!
> 
> That vixen, she's a master of disguise!  
> I see danger, when I look in her eyes.  
> She's so foxy, she could lead to my demise.  
> So I'm running, 'cause I've run out of time.  
> \--"Bombshell Blonde," Owl City
> 
> YEAH IT'S THE SAME LYRICS
> 
> Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed!


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